1947project

1947project, a Los Angeles based time travel blog dedicated to unearthing forgotten crime stories and peculiar happenings from the city’s past, is seeking extraordinary contributors to research and write a blog entry once or twice weekly for one year.

On March 18, 1947project will launch a brand new site that offers a fresh spin on the time travel blog theme. The selected contributors will get a sneak peak at the site in question, to give them a little time to bone up on the material.

Potential contributors should be witty, concise writers and skilled researchers, with a passion for Los Angeles social history and an interest in true crime. We also welcome contributors who can write knowledgably on such subjects as architecture, city planning, entertainment, transportation, business, fringe religion and other topics that have been featured in past 1947project blog entries. Skill using or building digital maps is a big plus. You do not have to live in Los Angeles.

To get an idea of what we do, please browse this site.

There is no pay, but the successful applicant will have the opportunity to promote their other work on the site, be mentioned in press releases, get free seats on occasional Esotouric bus adventures and occupy a central spot on a website that has become a must-read for fans of L.A.’s offbeat past.

To apply for a spot on 1947project, please do the following by March 12:

1) ensure that you can access the ProQuest archives of the historical Los Angeles Times, either through the LA Public Library website (you will need a library card), by using the LAPL in-library computers, or from another source. You can call your local public or university librarian for help. Note that ProQuest access is essential for this project.

2) please submit the following application materials, pasted into our contact form:a) a writing sample of 300-500 words, in which you take the basic facts of Marie Prevost’s 1937 death (Google it) and turn it into a 1947project-style blog entry. Imagine you are telling the story to a neighbor who hasn’t yet heard what’s happened, writing it up in a letter home, or submitting a story to a scandal magazine—whatever tone feels right to you. Feel free to use snappy period slang, make suggestions about what might have taken place, and place the dead woman into historical context.b) your resumec) an explanation of why you are interested in being a 1947project blogger and what you feel you will bring to the project.d) how often can you contribute, one or two posts a week?

Welcome, gentle reader, to the new and much-improved 1947project blog. After one full year blogging the crimes and oddities of 1947 Los Angeles, we begin Anno 2 by leaving behind the clunky primitivism of Blogger (no categories? no tags? single RSS feeds? come on!) for the cutting edge power of the Dumplingfeed engine (thanks, Richard!).

The biggest change you’ll notice is the inclusion of our longtime king of comments Larry Harnisch to the official roster of 1947project bloggers. He brings extraordinary depth as a researcher, a sly wit, and a propensity for remixing historical content into intriguing new media. Welcome, Larry, to the front page!

And then there’s the little matter of subject. Since I started this blog last March, people have been asking Nathan and myself: what comes after you finish the year? Will you start in on 1948, or something totally different? Nathan goofed at a party that the next year might be 1923, which was picked up by LAObserved. Sorry about the faux-scoop, Kevin–we actually had yet to decide what came next when Nathan set his gums to flapping.

Well, if you’ve found this URL in advance of Tuesday’s official changeover, we feel you deserve a little insider information. As hinted broadly in Larry’s horsey video below, we are about to plunge into the strange and fascinating year 1907.

Our initial research has shown us a Los Angeles that is deeply unfamiliar, despite the streets whose names we know. The locals were strange, the newspapers florid, and money flowed like wine. We look forward to exploring this year with you, and to learning more about a Los Angeles that seems very different from any of the versions of the city we feel we know.

The new site features cross-referencing by types of crime and by neighborhood, so readers can delve into subjects that most interest them without having to follow a strictly chronological path. We’ve added tags (a sort of keyword), adding additional organizational data to each post.

Readers may, if they wish, subscribe to any search result by clicking the little orange XML button that appears on the bottom of any page. Want to know whenever someone gets poisoned or tossed out a window? Use a feedreader like Bloglines and subscribe to the appropriate feed, and you’ll be kept up to date. Or subscribe to the full feed for every little thing we publish.

So hop into the Wayback Machine, gentle reader, and join your hosts Kim, Nathan and Larry as we touch down in a very weird and wonderful Los Angeles. We’re still called 1947project, but out the window it’s 1907… and we can’t wait to show you around!